Updates from the Airport

Every year, I tend to spend parts of July and most of August in-transit. This year has proven to be no exception. This summer has seen me in northern Vermont, New York, Malta, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Denver and in the very near future, London.  I don't know that I set out with the intention of being a Jet-setter, but I'm beginning to wonder if I mightn't fit into the category after all.

Either way, I thought I'd send a nod, by way of this blog. It's going to be getting a lot more attention come September. A lot of the neglected parts of my life are.  Look for changes and improvements, and heckle me if you don't see them!

The End of an Era

This morning was the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, and the end of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program. It's kind of sad. I can understand that there just isn't any money left for it, and that unmanned spacecraft can tell us just as much, if not more than putting a human into space could. But I've always loved the idea of space travel. If not the practicalities, it seems pretty insanely technical really.  I tuned in this morning to catch a few minutes before the launch, and the liftoff.  As incredible to watch as ever. I snapped a few photos off from my TV. 

The Great Millipede Attack of 2011

My house is under siege. My kitchen is a battlefield full of the dying and the dead. Corpses are strewn pell mell around my front door step. In the living room, scouts are sent out to gauge the scene.

It sounds like I'm living in a bad zombie flick. Actually, not so much. I might almost prefer the zombies. They're bigger, and slower, and don't appear to breed as quickly. Instead, I get these guys:

  

   The ones I am particularly afflicted with seem to be  Order: Julida Family: Parajulidae Genus: Aniulus.  I can't pin down the exact species. But i think that's pretty close enough, no? Whatever they are, I really don't like them. Since I came back from Malta, I'd been noticing a few of them scattered about my house, but nothing to overly upset me. For the most part, I try and just leave a bug alone if he's not blatantly freaking me out. Seems like the nice karmic thing to do . Except then a few days ago, I noticed that the frequency of these little guys was starting to climb. The first few days it was one or two, then it was 5 or 6, the previous day it had been ten. Yesterday morning I came downstairs and, my hand to God, I killed no fewer than 45 in a 10 minute time frame. 

I'm not normally a squeamish kind of girl, but I HATE bugs. My mother once said that you are either a spider person or a snake person. In general, people find one of these two to be horribly upsetting, and lose the capability of behaving rationally.  She's a snake person, I'm a spider person, but the dislike of spiders extends to most things big, segmented and crawly. I can deal with tiny ants, and flies if I have to, but that's kind of the extent of my tolerance. These millipedes have been a serious trial. 

 This little genocidal event more or less set the tone for my day. I think I hit triple digits sometime in the evening, but after about 65 I gave up counting. It was too upsetting.  I've called the rental office that administers my place as well as others nearby, apparently the entire block is affected. On the upside this means I don't have to pay for the exterminator. On the downside, it means that he or she will not be here until tomorrow, and the bug onslaught will continue until then (and possibly afterward). 

In the meantime, I have armed myself with RAID bug barrier and spritzed the baseboards liberally, I think it's made a difference, but I'm still tripping over creepy crawlies with regularity. I've also found a gap between the baseboard and the floor about 3 feet long near my front door....can't help but wonder if this might be one of the places that they are originating from (then again, i'm pretty sure). So, one of today's projects will be to get a nice supply of caulk to lay by for after the exterminator has been. 

It's a bugs life....

Malta: Getting There

Summer time, for me, is always full of adventures and insane amounts of travel. I love it this way, but it can make me rather scattered and distracted. The brief periods that I'm actually at home are usually spent frantically trying to catch up on laundry and make sure my bills are paid. It's hectic, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Okay, maybe I'd have myself having more sleep, but close enough.  My summer shenanigans kicked off with a trip to the island of Malta last week, which I am now finally rested enough to relate.

When I heard that was where I was going, several months ago, my response was Great!...now let me just run and check a map and make sure that Malta is where I think it is.  Thankfully, my geography, patchy though it may be at times, was correct in this case. It's embarrassing not to know where you're going.

Image Source: http://www.holiday-malta.com

Friday and Saturday were spent traveling and, after a million hour flight (okay, more like two 2 ½ hour flights, 2 long layovers and an 8 hour flight, but who’s counting?),  I arrived in Malta to find the sea breeze blowing and the sun shining. The airport is in the middle of the island, towards the southeast. Technically there are different towns/cities but because of the size of the island, most of the really urbanized areas have bled into each other.  Even though our hotel was on the other side of the island, it was still only about 25 minutes away. Parts of the island are still agricultural, growing grapes, olives and the like.

On the whole, the island is (not surprisingly) highly dependent on imports for most of it's food. It also has the distinction of being the most densely populated country in the world, with a population of over 400,000 in an area of about 300ish square kilometers. Behold the wonders of world shipping and urban planning. I can't help but wonder how much of that population growth has been in the past 70 years or so.  Another fact of particular interest, is that Malta is the only country that has not legalized divorce (excluding Vatican City), although they passed a referendum in favor of writing legislation for it recently. 

To follow: 

The Knights of St. John 

Mdina

Plague!

A-ward Bound, (iPod part 3)

No, my dear, dedicated...two readers. (Hi!), I have not forgotten about the iPod thing. Last week involved all sorts of shenanigans (soon to follow), So now it's time to catch up on the songs.

I started my new volunteering gig last week, a few mornings a week doing office work for a non-profit. It's calm and mindless, and a great time to make big headway on my track list. I started with the A's, since My car and my iPod differ as to how what order the symbols/numbers should be played in. But everyone can get along with regards to alphabetizing. It's pretty finite.

So far, I am still plowing through the As. Starting with  ABC by the Jackson 5 (still awesome) and i'm now up to Always by Blink-182. If there are any song writers out there, please take this moment to absorb that it is time to start coming up with songs that are NOT titled  starting with "All" or "Alone"....the 'Alls' chunk of my playlist is 46 songs, not including duplicates.  I also have 5 or 6 completely different songs that are titled "All I need".  Time to be more creative, kids.

Some highlights from the bunch:

-Acts 1-5 of Much Ado About Nothing by the Royal Shakespeare Company (radio version?). Always a fun listen, and kept me busy for much of my time in the office.
- I may have discovered a little bit of love for Toby Keith
- I seem to have an obscene amount of Bruce Springsteen. I knew this already, but i keep being surprised at the sheer amount of it. Particularly as I was never a huge fan? Not that I object, but just....seriously.

By my count i'm 149 songs in, not counting the symbol/number songs. Which should add another 20-30 or so. At this rate, I'll be done in a few years.

What the hell is on my iPod pt 2

More songs I didn't know I had. I'm pushing to get through the symbols and on to the letters, as my car and my iPod/iTunes seem to differ in opinion on how they should be handled. Which means keeping track of what I'm listening to involves taking a photo with my phone while driving. Not fun. Once I get to actual letters, i'm figuring I can just make playlists.

"It's Not a War Story. It's a Love Story. A Ghost Story." - This is How Rumors Get Started
- The band is headed by someone I knew in high school, every so often their stuff comes up, and I always get a bit of a smile out of it, quite catchy.

(All I have to do is) Dream - The Nylons - A capella version

(Everytime I hear) That Mellow Saxophone - Brian Setzer Orchestra

(Goin') Wild for you baby - Bonnie Rait

(Night time is) The Right Time - Ray Charles

(No More) Paddy's Lament - Flogging Molly

(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay - Rockapella - This actually turned out to be their cover of Surfer Girl.

(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay - Rockapella - Actual song

(The Legend of) Johnny Kool - Brian Setzer Orchestra

(Urban Edit) Stole - Kelly Rowland

(Where do I begin) Love Story - Tony Bennet

...And the Future - Robin Williams (tail end of Live at the Met)

[Bonus Track] - Fefe Dobson (Rainbow) (I really liked this one)

[Untitled Track] - Rockapella

This last one is making my brain hurt. I'm not entirely convinced it's even Rockapella singing, although I think i might hear that rather distinctive bass singer in there somewhere. What I DO know, is that it's sung mostly in Japanese, with the occasional chorus along the lines of
'Christmas Eve...something something? hold me, hold me, warm me love. Christmas time for you and me. Love me, Hold me, warm my body. Christmas time for you and me"

Not a damned clue, and google is turning up absolutely nothing. I know it's not a track on the Rockapella album it lists, as i have all of those other songs. I'm pretty stumped on this one.

Saturday Night Shenanigans

So, around 7pm last night I got a call from my friend M, wondering what I was up to. At that point, I realized that I had been roaming among the wilds of Whole Foods for TWO HOURS. While I will be the first to acknowledge that I tend to lose time when shopping, two hours in a food store? That's a new one, even for me. Put in perspective though, it makes sense, as huge chunks of that time were spent looking for ingredients I haven't used before (or even knew existed. See: coconut flour). I was a little horrified, but at least I'd finally found all the ingredients I was looking for.

M proposed a trade, dinner for dessert. I felt like this was a pretty good deal. So I had a lovely dinner of vegetarian tacos, and presented M with the banana bread I had planned on making that evening.

Specifically, this banana bread:

The recipe is actually from the Duggar Family Blog. The blog itself is not run by the Duggars, but i think they are affiliated with them in some way. Regardless, it was highly tasty bread, and a recipe from a source I hadn't seen before. On the whole, it came out very tastily. My thoughts comments on the recipe
A) I added some cinnamon as well, might add more next time.
B) The bread rose *a lot*.
C) In my oven, it took longer to bake, but only about 5-10 minutes.
D) I'm always initially very disappointed with banana bread. It's not a baked good that is at it's best fresh out of the oven, I've wrapped the part of the loaf that I kept (most went home with M) and put it in the fridge to sit for a couple of days. I've found this is generally the best way to go with banana breads, gives the bananas time to get their strength up.

Today, at some point, I'm intending to try out a Gluten Free Strawberry Cupcake recipe I found, hence all the searching for odd ingredients. I've never done any gluten free cooking, so this should be interesting.